Particular embodiments generally relate to communication systems and more specifically to techniques for controlling power in a channel.
In communications systems, such as in satellite communications and terrestrial wireless with a limited receiver dynamic range, there may be a maximum allowed power in a channel. In some cases, transmitters are configured such that they cannot exceed a certain amount of power. All of the transmitters in the channel are then regulated such that the maximum power in the channel will not be exceeded when all transmitters are transmitting at their max power. This, however, does not allow flexibility for transmitters. For example, if not all transmitters are transmitting thus underutilizing the allowed power in the channel, and if active transmitters have traffic that could be transmitted using the underutilized power, but are not configured to exceed their individual maximum power levels, then the traffic cannot be sent using power in excess of those power levels. This may occur in environments that include bursty traffic such as web browsing and emails in addition to constant rate traffic such as streaming video and voice.